What’s bad for usability is using icons on their own. Using icons with visible labels is the best practice among people who actually want their software to be usable.
And of course “bad for usability” becomes absolutely catastrophic for a11y.
For those who prioritize aesthetics over usability and use icons alone though, there are at least a dozen methods to make assistive tech read the names of your icon buttons. Something as simple as aria-label is one way.
How so? aria-label= and role= attributes exist, this is not 1999.
What’s bad for usability is using icons on their own. Using icons with visible labels is the best practice among people who actually want their software to be usable.
And of course “bad for usability” becomes absolutely catastrophic for a11y.
For those who prioritize aesthetics over usability and use icons alone though, there are at least a dozen methods to make assistive tech read the names of your icon buttons. Something as simple as aria-label is one way.